Medicine Innovation Program

Overview

Throughout the Department of Medicine, talented faculty are developing innovative, cost-effective technologies that have the potential to significantly impact patient care. The Medicine Innovation Program (MIP) at Massachusetts General Hospital was launched in 2015 to support and advance these innovations. Over the past four years, MIP has provided seed funding to a diverse portfolio of projects in the artificial intelligence and digital health spaces, as well as to the development of novel therapeutics and medical devices. In 2017, MIP launched the ROCK STARt-up Associate Program with Third Rock Ventures, a leading biotechnology venture firm in Boston. This program gives faculty, interested in entrepreneurship, the opportunity to build successful and translational scientific ventures from the ground up. MIP is led by Christiana Iyasere MD, MBA.

Our Team

Christiana Iyasere, MD, MBA is the director of the Medicine Innovation Program. She is an established leader in developing innovative platforms focused on improving patient care. A graduate of Yale University, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Harvard University Business School, Christiana served as a Howard Hughes Research Fellow in HIV Immunology for the Laboratory of Immunoregulation at the National Institutes of Health. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at Mass General and served for a year as an Administrative Fellow alongside Dr. Peter Slavin, leading a series of projects related to optimal technology adoption and utilization. She has served in prominent roles such as Co-Director of the Mass General Innovation Support Center; Associate Director of “The Sandbox,” a clinical innovation site; Technology Assessment Coordinator for the Council for Technology, Adoption, Innovation, and Promotion; and Chair of the MassGeneral Innovation Collaborative. She is a member of the Mass General Brigham Innovation Council and the Mass General Brigham Epic Innovation Council. Christiana is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Michelle Tagerman, MS, MPH, is the Program Administrator for the Medicine Innovation Program. She coordinates the annual RFP and supports MIP awardees throughout the duration of their grants. Michelle holds a Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from Columbia University, and a Master of Science in Management Studies from Boston University. Michelle has experience consulting for Fortune 500 companies including AT&T and Quintiles (now IQVIA). Before joining the Department of Medicine at MGH as a Project Coordinator, Michelle worked at a healthcare start up, in mental health research, and as an EMT.

Advisory Board

• Gabriela Apiou, PhD, Director, Translational Research Core
• Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc, 2016 MIP Awardee
• Areej El-Jawahri, MD, Mass General Cancer Center
• Jeffrey Gelfand, MD, 2015 MIP Awardee
• Martha Gray, PhD, Director, Madrid-MIT m+vision consortium
• Steve Grinspoon, MD, Chief of the MGH Metabolism Unit
• Eric Isselbacher, MD, Director, Healthcare Transformation Lab
• Mark Lindsay, MD, PhD, 2018 Third Rock Ventures, Rock Star Associate
• Thomas McCoy, MD, 2017 MIP Awardee
• Paula McCree, Managing Director, Healthcare Transformation Lab
• Joshua Metlay, MD, PhD, Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine
• Larry Miller, MD, MPH, President, Apnimed, Inc.
• Kristian Olson, MD, Director, CAMTech
• Mark Poznansky, MD, PhD, Director of the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center
• Nimra Taqi, MS, Mass General Brigham Innovation
• Shaw Warren, MD, Associate Faculty Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Our Programs

Medicine Innovation Pilot Grant Awards

The Medicine Innovation Pilot Grant Awards take research projects with the potential to transform medicine and provides them with the needed resources to move forward to the next inflection point in successful solution development. Resources provided include structured project management support, milestone based stewardship of resources, focused mentorship and access to networks that can move the project to the next step in development. The goal is to move from a project to a product that can be consumed and used by patients and providers.

MIP actively supports projects for one year to 18 months depending on the needs of the project and project team. Many of MIP’s projects have gone on to attain follow-on grant funding, industry partnerships, or successful adoption into the existing healthcare infrastructure.

2021–2022 RFA

At least two projects will be funded for direct costs of up to $75,000 for the 2021-22 cycle. Projects must demonstrate a new way of thinking about an existing challenge that falls within one of the following four categories:

1. Technology and Equity: Technologies that directly address issues of health care inequity via promoting access, improving quality or creating enabling tools for communities at risk
2. General Innovation (Device, Therapeutic, IT, Digital Health): Any project that has the potential to transform how we deliver patient care
3. Digital Health: Any project that applies modern digital technologies to improve health care
4. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: Any project that explores opportunities to further enhance physician effectiveness, patient diagnosis/treatment or reduction of administrative burden via enhanced decision support or machine learning

Key Dates

• RFA Announcement: September 1, 2021
• Office Hours: September 15, 2021 & October 5, 2021
• Applications Due: October 12, 2021
• Finalist Presentations: November 2021
• Winners Announced: Winter 2021
• Anticipated Funding Start Date: Early Spring 2022

Eligibility

The primary PI must have an appointment in the Department of Medicine. Previous applicants who have made significant progress are encouraged to apply.  Funding may also be used for ancillary support of a larger project if it works to support key questions that derisk a novel idea.

Office Hours

If you have questions or want to learn more about the MIP Innovation Grants, email Michelle Tagerman (mtagerman1@mgh.harvard.edu) to schedule a 15-minute informational session on the following dates:

• Wednesday, September 15^th, 4-5:30 pm; in person (DOM, Gray Bigelow Suite 730, Bazari Conference Room [Room 735]) or virtual
• Tuesday, October 5^th, 5-6 pm; virtual

Please see the RFA document for full details on how to apply, and learn more in our MIP Report.

• 2021 MIP Innovation Pilot Grant RFA (PDF)
• 2020-2021 MIP Report (PDF)

ROCK STARt-up Associate Program

The ROCK STARt-Up Associate Program is a 2-year associate program in which Mass General DOM faculty will be immersed in the biotech start-up environment at Third Rock Ventures (TRV) in Boston, MA. The Boston Biotech community is one of the most robust in the world and TRV is one of the leading venture capital groups in the country. Consequently, the potential for Mass General DOM faculty to actively participate in and build translational opportunities is unparalleled.

TRV has a unique translational model: the group builds companies from the ground up, starting in an area defined by clinical need and scientific opportunity. As a result, they represent an entrepreneurial environment in which Mass General DOM faculty can participate in the process of building a successful scientific venture from its early beginnings.

Learn more about Third Rock Ventures.

Program Goals:

• Experience/exposure of Mass General faculty to the translational, entrepreneurial environment of early biotech start-ups and company creation
• Faculty career development: scientific idea translation, concept de-risking, company formation*
• Broadening of the translational expertise of the Mass General Department of Medicine
• The associate will participate in the entrepreneurial environment at 3rd Rock
• The program does not include the development of personal ideas or inventions from participants lab and/or experience at Mass General 

For more information, please contact:
Christiana Iyasere, MD, MBA
Director, Mass General DOM Medicine Innovation Program (MIP), Rock Star Associate program

Michelle Tagerman, MS, MPH
MIP Program Administrator

Portfolio: 2015-2021

MIP Winner 2020-2021

Amy Sarma, MD, MHS

Virtual Cardiac Rehabilitation Program Following Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy

Dr. Amy Sarma is a cardiologist in the Mass General Women’s Heart Health program and a co-investigator on a multidisciplinary, funded study of postpartum telemonitoring in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). Her innovation project investigates the acceptability of a virtual cardiac rehabilitation program and its impact on weight, lifestyle modifications, cardiometabolic health, patient engagement and outcomes following HDP, as compared to a strategy of BP telemonitoring alone.

Digital Health

• Allergy Passport
  • Digital Application for medication and food allergies
  • Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc
  • 2016 Awardee
• DreAMLand
  • Digital Application for support of patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia 
  • Areej El-Jawahri, MD
  • 2017 Awardee
• Smartphone App for Ascites Management
  • Mass General Brigham Connected Health application to facilitate outpatient management of cirrhotic ascites
  • Patricia Bloom, MD
  • 2018 Awardee
• Virtual Cardiac Rehabilitation Program Following Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy
  • Amy Sarma, MD, MHS
  • 2020 Awardee

Artificial Intelligence

• PROE PCI
  
  • Risk assessment for patient and physician prior to cardiac catheterization for improved decision making
  • Jason Wasfy, MD, MPH
  • 2015 Awardee
• Clinical Data Visualization and Machine Learning  
  • Deep learning to extract useful information for clinical decision making
  • Tom McCoy, MD
  • 2017 Awardee
• Natural Language Processing in the Evaluation and Diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome 
  • Kyle Staller, MD, MPH
  • 2018 Awardee

Diagnostics

• SHERLOCK for STIs
  • Novel, CAS13-based point-of-care detection of STIs and antimicrobial resistance
  • Robert Goldstein, MD, PhD
  • 2019 Awardee
• Day Zero Diagnostics
  • Diagnosis of bacterial species and sensitivities within hours
  • Douglas Kwon, MD, PhD
  • 2016 Awardee

Therapeutics and Medical Devices

• Long Acting Parathyroid Hormone
  
  • First in class drug for treatment of Hypoparathyroidism
  • Michael Mannstadt, MD, PhD
  • 2015 Awardee
• Laser Therapy for Treatment of Resistant Urinary Tract Infections 
  
  • Novel treatment of urinary tract infections with light based therapy
  • Jeffery Gelfand, MD
  • 2015 Awardee
• Allergy Tolerance
  • Laser therapy to induce immune tolerance to food allergens
  • Satoshi Kashiwagi, MD, PhD
  • 2016 Awardee
• Novel Osteoporosis Therapy
  • New oral therapy for osteoporosis
  • Mark Wein, MD, PhD
  • 2017 Awardee
• Digital device for porphyria management and diagnosis
  • Smartphone-based digital devices for measuring photosensitivity in porphyria
  • Amy Dickey, MD, MSc
  • 2019 Awardee

Our Partners

• Mass General Healthcare Transformation Lab
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology IDEA² Global
• Duke Clinical & Translational Research Institute
• Third Rock Ventures
• The Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center